FBI charges Megaupload operators with piracy crimes

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

Exactly, they now have this as a reason to point to, that the internet is truly out of control and is full of "Hackers" (the nomenclature has morphed over the years so that hackers really means crackers), pirates, and criminals and thus they really need to get tough.

and label them as "dangerous" individuals who will steal all your money and your identity, yada yada and this is why they need an internet "kill switch", permanent online tracking IDs or somesuch. anon handed them the propaganda that'll (eventually) be used.

it'll NEVER get better, things will only get worse. and this won't end well for any of us.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Hey wait a minute!
Would you please direct me to information on that case.

Thanks

Y'know, I had it but seem to have misplaced it? I'm pretty sure I saw it in either American Rifleman or the Houston Chronicle, sometime back during the Bush jr era.

Naturally, Google turns up hunting lodges in Alaska instead of relevant court casess >.>

Originally Posted by xg4bx

if they want to crack drm and release the codes far and wide so be it, i'd probably applaud. but unless they're prepared,and able, to utterly shut down a government they can't f around like this. like they say, don't point a loaded gun at someone unless you intend to use it.

Well, they just did shut down part of a government office, probably using a botnet and a simple DOSA attack. But yeah, IMO they'd be better off sticking their focus on corporate interests and leaving the government alone. After all, the government is just a sock puppet in this case, and they need to go for the puppeters.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by teh603

Uh... wow. They do realize they aren't helping things, right?

Actually, they are.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Actually, they are.

How does engaging in criminal activities "help" anyone? The only people it helps, to my mind, are those arguing for tighter regulation of the Internet.

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is "cyberterrorism". There's really no other term for it.

DDoS is more a kin of protesting outside property and blocking way in there, which is like best analogy for real-life. Ofc releasing information and such is worse.

Still, it would be intresting if USA extradicted someone to for example islamist country for espionage or saying the wrong things or murders...

So even taking down stuff if requested don't help. Maybe media companies should just fix their bussiness model...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

DDoS is more a kin of protesting outside property and blocking way in there,

Which is illegal, is it not? It certainly is where I live. You can legitimately protest outside a business, but you certainly aren't allowed to prevent people from reaching them.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which is illegal, is it not? It certainly is where I live. You can legitimately protest outside a business, but you certainly aren't allowed to prevent people from reaching them.

Tell that to the abortion clinic protesters who were making their young children lie down across the ramps going into and out of parking lots. I don't think any of them was arrested. And while one example of uneven application may not be enough to totally invalidate the law, it certainly undermines it.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How does engaging in criminal activities "help" anyone? The only people it helps, to my mind, are those arguing for tighter regulation of the Internet.

It brings the topic to the attention of a wider audience. It's just been mentioned on the BBC News at 1, though they did add their own corporate spin on it. They said it was a pirate site, and showed pictures of the owner's mansion house and pink Cadillac.

No mention was made of the fact things like this will affect all sites that allow unmoderated user content, but if it gets people curious enough to go and have a look on the internet for further information they will find out that way. For now, anyway.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

These extradition "requests" are apparently made not on the evidence etc... that would be required in a court under British law, but basically on the US authorities saying they are guilty of doing whatever it is they claim they have done. Hard evidence does not have to be provided in support of an application.
And it doesn't matter if it's not illegal in Britain....

Neither of those statements are true.
In order for Britain to honour an extradition request, the requesting state must show there is an equivalent offence under UK law that could result on conviction in a sentence of at least 12 months imprisonment. See Extradition Act 2003, Part 2, section 137. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/part/2)

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Neither of those statements are true.
In order for Britain to honour an extradition request, the requesting state must show there is an equivalent offence under UK law that could result on conviction in a sentence of at least 12 months imprisonment. See Extradition Act 2003, Part 2, section 137. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/part/2)

Which raises the question, why did a judge approve the extradition of the guy who ran a site that included links to copyright infringing content, which was deemed not against the law in the UK.

Either there's more to that case than was reported or it should be overturned on appeal.

What happens in the case of MU remains to be seen. On the one hand it appears they were following through on take downs, but other reports mention that they took only a single link down, leaving the offending files still available via other links. I know nothing about NZ law though, so whether that would constitute an offence or not, no comment.

A question this action again raises though with this and other domain seizures is, IF an individual or company is not breaking the law of their own country, should the US have the power to still seize their domains?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Which raises the question, why did a judge approve the extradition of the guy who ran a site that included links to copyright infringing content, which was deemed not against the law in the UK.

My understanding is that it became an extraditable offence due to the fact that he'd allegedly earned $230,000 in advertising revenue from the site. That put it into the criminal category, rather than simply being a case of civil copyright infringement.

[azazel1024]

For the British case, I believe the US is attempting to assert the fact that the kid in question was violating copyright law in the US, but with the various treaties in stuff in place, it might well mean that the US actually has a legitimate case for extradition. The copyrights in question are valid in Britain as well. Now as for the linking, it doesn't necessarily violate British law simply linking to copyrighted material, however it does violate US law.

In general a sticky case as they are US copyrights which are also respected/observed/copyrighted under British law, but the manner in which they were violated isn't necessarily illegal in Britain, but international treaties, etc might well mean that the British should be respecting US law in this case and grant the extradition.

I am not saying he should be extradited, but it is a lot more complicated then simply saying, "He can't be violating US law from England and what he is doing there isn't illegal". International treaties can be tricky things.

For Megaupload. Well, they certainly complied with most of the safe harbor provisions of DMCA, but they can't really claim to be a truely legitimate business as their primary method of income was related to/because of copyright infringement even if they weren't directly violating copyrights and were pretty quick about take-downs. It would be a little like saying a smuggler is really great at turning over their illegal goods when the coast guard catches up to them and claiming they had no idea what it was that they were carrying on behalf of their clients, but that they sure wouldn't want to participate in anything illegal, so here are the goods!

To me the case with Megaupload is a good example of why we DO NOT need anything resembling SOPA/PIPA. Feds can and have taken action against a pretty blatant copyright infringer, even if they were only facilitating copyright infringement indirectly (totally unbeknownst to them of course ).

As an example of how SOPA/PIPA likely would be abused to the n-th degree. Google the youtube vs viacom case that occured not too long ago. The judge threw the case out (Viacom was suing youtube as violating the DMCA) when it turned out that Viacom employees were INTENTIONALLY and anonimously uploading Viacom copyrighted materials to youtube, and then turning around issuing take down notices and malarky like that expressly to build a case that youtube was violating safe harbor provisions so that they could sue them.

Yeah, like SOPA and PIPA would never be abused (crap, DMCA is abused constantly by the big media companies).

[azazel1024]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My understanding is that it became an extraditable offence due to the fact that he'd allegedly earned $230,000 in advertising revenue from the site. That put it into the criminal category, rather than simply being a case of civil copyright infringement.

There could also probably be an argument about some of that money having come from the US, which might well add an additional nail in the coffin for the guy and it is at least possible, though no idea, that some of the servers, DNS, etc could have at least at some point existed in the US as well.

Most countries will extradite if you break laws in another country "on the other country's soil". So the money coming from the US could well legally put the nail in the coffin that the copyright infringement occured IN the US, at least in part.

Not the severity, but it would be (very tangentially) like if he came to the US, got drunk at age 19, was "caught" and when let out on bail "fled" to the UK and the US was asking extradition for under age drinking (lets assume the US didn't attempt to press "flight to avoid prosecution" charges). The UK might not extradite because of how minor the charges are (not sure on international extradition treaties, minor crimes and misdemeanors might not be extraditable offenses), HOWEVER, he could possibly be extradited even though drinking at 19 is not a crime in the UK. It is a crime in the US, and he commited it "on US soil". So there would be a case for extradition (again, as I mentioned, not sure if under international treatied minor crimes and misdemeanors are extraditable or not).

So if some of the money came from the US, legally he may well have commited the copyright offenses in part "on US soil".

[teh603]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

No mention was made of the fact things like this will affect all sites that allow unmoderated user content, but if it gets people curious enough to go and have a look on the internet for further information they will find out that way. For now, anyway.

Y'know, this could result in Dropbox closing, as well as Rapidshare and quite a few other services with legitimate, legal uses. Hell, case law from this could close the door on cloud computing.

Although I've always been a little worried about the whole "your data is on the cloud" instead of "No, its in this USB stick where I can keep an eye on it." There's nothing to stop a cloud provider from saying "Its your data until we can make a profit on it, then it becomes *our* data," or prohibiting users from migrating cloud-stored data from one provider to another if they get a better deal. So ultimately, a loss of cloud computing would IMO not be a meaningful loss.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by teh603

Y'know, this could result in Dropbox closing, as well as Rapidshare and quite a few other services with legitimate, legal uses. Hell, case law from this could close the door on cloud computing.

Dropbox is a little different in that it's primarily a cloud archiving service, rather than a "sharing" service. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't offer public download facilities, does it?

RapidShare - hell, yes. Pirates all the way. I'm amazed they've lasted this long.